Sellers sometimes have a difficult time determining how they should price a used vehicle. This difficulty is exacerbated by the vagaries of used car transactions, especially in comparison with the sale or purchase of new cars.
For example, (a) condition is a critical factor to the value of a used car but it doesn't apply to new cars; (b) Mileage on a used car affects the value whereas it can be ignored on new cars; (c) In general, the older the vehicle, the less the price; age is not an issue with new cars; (d) Used car pricing has a much wider range of model years and many more vehicle models to work with; new cars only include at most vehicles in the most recent 2 or 3 model years; (e) Sales velocity drops dramatically for older vehicles, especially for those 10+ years old cars; thus, far fewer data points for analysis are available; In most cases, an adequate number of comparable new car transactions are available; (f) Options on a particular used car cannot be configured. For new cars, options can be customized with dealer-installed options or by direct order from manufacturers.
It is thus desirable to account for these various challenges and factors when providing a buyer or seller with pricing data associated with a specified used vehicle, including for example, historical transaction data, a trade-in price, a list price, an expected sale price or range of sale prices or an expected time to sale. It is also desired that certain of the pricing data be presented in conjunction with the transaction data associated with the specified used vehicle. It is further desired that this transaction data may be presented as a distribution of the transaction data and certain pricing data including such price points as market low sale price, market average sale price or market high sale price may be presented relative to the transaction data.